How to land your dream WordPress job

US study shows how web designers and developers can stand out in the competitive job market.

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WordPress dominates 65 per cent of the CMS market. That's according to research from WP Engine, which shows that the publishing platform is over four times more popular than online competitors like Joomla (14 per cent), Drupal (8 per cent) and Squarespace (2 per cent).

WP Engine's research, which pulls together findings from sources ranging from Indeed.com to web app analysis project Wappalyzer.com and Elance.com, shows that there are plenty of potential career opportunities through WordPress – if you know where to look.

So where in the US are WordPress pros are most likely to land their dream job? WP Engine analysed online job listings on Indeed.com for WordPress-centric positions, and here's what it found:

Designers are most likely to find a job working with WordPress in New York

Where are the US jobs?

WP Engine identified job listings seeking a Wordpress designer or developer and mapped the most common locations of these listings by state and city.

"Notably, New York is the No. 1 ranking state for both job fields," reads the report, "but at their peaks, WordPress developer job openings are about 50 percent more common than those for WordPress designers."

Utah hits second place for developers and third for designers, while California ranks fourth for designers but only seventh for developers.

What are the salaries?

According to WP Engine, the most common salaries in the US for WordPress-related careers range from $30,000 to $49,000 a year, followed by $50,000 to $69,000. "But cumulatively, salaries of more than $50,000 comprise the vast majority."

For WordPress developers, the largest salary category was $40,000 to $59,000. However, salaries of $60,000 and higher were the majority. According to WP Engine: "These salaries are on par with the U.S. mean annual wage of $68,670 for web developers."

WordPress designers, meanwhile can expect salaries comparable to the U.S. mean annual wage of $50,670 for graphic designers. Salaries of $30,000 to $49,000 are the most common, but those of $50,000 are the majority overall.

"This suggests that WordPress workers perusing these job listings have a good chance of finding a well-paying position that keeps pace with the national average."

What about WordPress freelancers?

Delaware houses the most WordPress freelancers, according to Elance.com, and their top skills are Photoshop (15 per cent) and general design skills (12.5 per cent), followed by HTML5 (9.6 per cent), CSS (9.5 per cent) and Excel (8.5 per cent).

"Altogether, the majority of freelancers charge hourly rates of $20 or more, which is comparable to the U.S. mean hourly wage of $24.36 for graphic designers and $33.02 for web developers."